One Minute to Midnight
by LegacyOfThePheonix
Summary: Draco Malfoy failed his first, and last, task as a Death Eater. Now he dreams of the one person he can never have, and ruminates on his life past and present. Set to Missing by Evanescence.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything of Harry Potter or the lovely Amy Lee. Original stories, characters or plot lines, though, are mine. Read and Review.

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Draco Malfoy: One Minute to Midnight: A "Missing" songfic

_Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream. ~ Francis Palgrave_

* * *

"I am…disappointed." Lucius Malfoy's cold voice cut through his son like a knife. "I do not like being disappointed, Draco."

Draco Malfoy, age seventeen, sat across the ridiculously long, highly polished dinner table. It was nearing eleven-thirty at night, and he'd just failed in his first task as a Death Eater. Of course, killing Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore wasn't exactly a fair task for a newly recruited Death Eater. Nor a seventeen-year old student not even out of school. And so it wasn't entirely with surprise that Draco sat with his eyes cast down, staring at his grimy hands, wanting only to sink into the rigid texture of the high-backed chair and disappear.

_**Please, please forgive me**_

"Do you have anything to say, boy?" Lucius roared angrily, sending his goblet of wine flying across the room to shatter on the cold wooden floors.

"Lucius," Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, chided her husband gently, attempting to draw his anger away; he waved her away like a pesky annoyance. Draco entertained the welcoming thought of battling his father, wrestling control from him, and taking charge of his own life; but in the end, he just sat there and took the abuse like he always did.

_**But I won't be home again**_

"You leaned on Severus like a damned crutch, you little Squib," Lucius stood, sneering down at his son with a look generally reserved for do-gooder Gryffindors and Muggles. "No son of mine would have failed." Narcissa sat with her head bowed, a long curtain of perfectly groomed blond hair hiding her face as her husband stalked out into their hallway.

_**Maybe someday you'll look up**_

_**And barely conscious,**_

_**You'll say to no one**_

Draco thought of all the things he wanted to say to his mother; among the number were retorts about how blind she was, to remain in a position she obviously did not want anymore, and beside that were declarations of love he'd never dared voice, petitions for forgiveness he knew he did not deserve, and just a desire for her to open her eyes and _see_ the truth about this loveless existence she led. _Mother…_

_**Isn't something missing?**_

That night, Draco lay in bed, listening to his father raging, and his mother's soft weeping. He knew everything was lost. He'd lost his family's status, his father's reputation, and his own self-respect. Still clad in his black Slytherin robes, Draco laid on his plush bed and for once, didn't let his mind steer away from the unpleasant truths that plagued him deep into the night.

Black hair and bright green eyes flashed before him, and Draco knew that he was lost again. He'd dreamed of those eyes for years, since he'd first caught a glimpse of them on a Madame Malkin's stool. Harry Potter had occupied his every thought since that day he'd rejected the slender, pale hand outstretched in friendship. But over time, Draco had painstakingly gained control over those desires he dared not let his father know about. Now, the sight of green eyes and a Quidditch-toned body only occupied his every _other_ thought.

_**You won't cry for my absence, I know.**_

_**You forgot me long ago.**_

Potter and his stupid, naïve band of Gryffindors. That faithful, loyal group of friends that had stood by him, through thick and thin, had only infringed on Draco's life when he let his guard down. When he admitted to himself that, though he had minions and cohorts, friends were in short supply for a Slytherin. Most of his so-called "friends" would steal his teeth if he dared smile at them.

He wondered how Potter would cope without that merry band. _What would Potter do? Merlin, I might as well start another fan club for him._

_**Am I that unimportant?**_

Frustrated, and more than angry, the boy heaved himself out of his bed – which actually took some work; the feathers seemed determined to trap him in this life he no longer wanted – and began throwing things into a hastily conjured carrying bag. Clothes went in, shoes and his spare wand, as well as fake Galleon he'd taken from a fourth year Hufflepuff back in his fifth year – it still occasionally grew hot, and he'd swear that every time he looked at it, the numbers had changed – but pictures, mementos, anything to remind him of the Manor was left lying on their shelves or smashed on the floor.

_**Am I so insignificant?**_

_**Isn't something missing?**_

And at one minute to midnight, Draco Malfoy slung his bag over his shoulder, hoisted his wand, and strode out of Malfoy Manor, feeling freer than he ever had. His only regret was that the one person he wanted there to see his transformation couldn't care less.

_**Isn't someone missing me?**_

* * *

Harry Potter was miserable. This was more than likely the worst day of his life; even the day his parents died had been better: at least he'd been unable to really experience that with full cognition.

It had finally happened; he'd discovered why, exactly, and how he was supposed to take down Voldemort. Now, he understood exactly what the little Snitch that Dumbledore had left him meant. _I open at the close indeed_, he thought sourly, listening to Ron and Hermione bicker. He wasn't in a mood to join them.

_Malfoy Heir Disappears After Hogwarts Coup_ the Daily Prophet had read. Malfoy had gone missing nearly six months previously, and he'd not even heard about it. He remembered vividly all of their -- occasionally violent – fights, and thought about the dreams that no one else knew about. The dreams of quicksilver eyes and hair the color of moonlight. The thoughts of how his own suntanned skin might look against that alabaster, purebred perfection.

_**Even though I'm the sacrifice,**_

Vague thoughts of rescue ran rampant through his mind, nebulous desires more than coherent plans, and he knew the truth.

_**You won't try for me, not now**_

But as he laid down, feeling the weight of the Horcrux against his chest, feeling the fears and thoughts he'd never admit to anyone drag him down, he slipped into sleep and the waiting image of silver eyes; lips that had never smiled at him curved in lazy affection and slender, aristocratic fingers ran through Harry's wild hair lovingly.

_**Though I'd die to know you love me**_

And his last thought as he slept was _Why can't I have that?_

_**I'm all alone**_

Ron and Hermione let their argument drop off at the last cuttingly sarcastic retort, and both glanced over at Harry, sleeping on his side, and the yellowed scrap of newsparchment clutched loosely in his hand, with the words _Malfoy…Disappears_ visible.

_**Isn't someone missing me?**_

* * *

Draco huddled beneath his cloak. The Waterproofing Charm he'd laid on it when he first left home had long since faded away, and now, not only was he cold and alone, but he was dripping wet as well. The rain had begun two nights past, the ground was too wet to even think of making a fire, and Dementors were breeding like rabbits in this area.

He wondered briefly why they'd left him alone.

_I suppose they know a dead man when they see one…_

_**Please, please forgive me,**_

_**But I won't be home again.**_

As always, when he got tired, Draco's thoughts turned to Potter. He knew that Potter was alive, else the Death Eaters wouldn't be kept hopping looking for him. Grudgingly, he succumbed to the desires of his innermost soul -- no matter that the Gryffindors would insist that he didn't have one -- and curled up beneath the bare tree, with his wet cloak pulled around him like a child with a safety blanket.

Potter was probably sitting around a nice, cozy little campfire, in a warm, dry tent, with lots of – he yawned – warm, filling food and good company. If Granger and Weasley could be called good company, that is.

_**I know what you do to yourself**_

The Dark Mark burned painfully on his arm, and Draco opened one bleary eye to see a host of Dementors swooping down upon him, effectively trapping him in his own cage of branches and dead leaves. He took a deep breath and gagged on the cloying, -- perhaps imagined – stench of decaying flesh.

_**I breathe deep and cry out,**_

He could feel the damned Dark beasts ripping every shred of sanity away from him, could feel the call and answering messages in the Mark on his arm, that thrice damned Mark he'd stamped into himself with nothing but regret.

_**Isn't something missing?**_

And as he faded, knowing that he was well and truly abandoned, his last thought was the wishful sight of grass-green eyes and a hand stretched out in love and comfort.

_**Isn't someone missing me?**_

* * *

Harry awoke with a start. Something had reached out to him, some perversion in the web of magic connecting him to those whose lives were tied to his, and for lack of a better word, something had _disturbed_ him.

Someone, somewhere, was dying.

* * *

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

Draco woke to cold, briny water thrown on his face. Several hoarse voices laughed coarsely, and grunts and curses flew between them easily. One eye opening blearily, Draco groaned and his head dropped back to the cold stone.

Of all the people who'd been summoned to get him, could there be any worse candidate than Fenrir Greyback?

For one shining moment, there had been a bright spot on his remarkably dark horizon. He'd actually thought that Harry Potter might come and rescue him.

_**You won't try for me, not now,**_

What a fantasy.

* * *

"We have to go, now!" Harry yelled, waking his companions as he hurriedly threw their meager provisions into the mokeskin sack Hagrid had given him lifetimes ago.

"Harry, let's talk about this," Hermione said quietly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"There's no time to talk, Hermione!" he yelled, not caring about their secrecy anymore. Someone was in trouble. Someone needed him.

He could still feel a fading link, and whoever was on the other side was vanishing rapidly.

_**Though I'd die to know you love me**_

"What's going on?" Ron asked, noting the Horcrux dangling from Harry's neck.

"I felt something, I saw something, I don't even know how to describe it," Harry muttered feverishly, still trying to stuff more things into the rucksack. "Someone…I don't know. I saw someone dying, a death I could prevent!"

"How did you 'see' this time?" Ever patient, ever logical, Hermione wanted to know everything before risking life, limb and mission.

"I felt the vibration through the Horcrux. I don't know how, but it didn't come through my scar. It's someone He wants badly, and I woke up, with their screams ringing in my ears." Harry's eyes flashed tortured misery every time she saw them. "I have to go."

"Harry, mate…" Ron trailed off, unsure whether to bring it up. "Harry, remember Sirius."

"I do!" Harry roared. "It isn't LIKE THAT!" He looked around angrily, sighed and shouldered the bulging pack. Turning on the spot, he felt two hands connect with his at the very last moment and stepped across the folds of space and time slightly more relieved.

* * *

_I'm all alone_

Draco tried to block the thought out, that little cry at the back of his head, that screaming, whimpering little boy wondering why he was all alone in the dark, but with the Dementors so near the trap kept springing, kept catching him.

He could hear the would-be jailors, could hear the laughter over catching a new host of Muggleborns and Blood traitors. The irony, he supposed, was that they had no idea of who he was. He'd caught a glimpse of himself in the communal water bucket and could see how they'd be so ignorant.

His hair, once so sleek and fine, was threaded with twigs and leaves; the fine robes he'd worn so proudly – so proud to bear the Malfoy Crest, which had long since been ripped off – were caked with filth and mud. And on top of that, as though that weren't disfiguring enough, he'd lost so much weight that his cheekbones looked like knives truing to cut through his own facial skin.

And for once, Draco Malfoy didn't care how he appeared.

There wasn't much of a Draco Malfoy to care.

_**Isn't someone missing me?**_

* * *

Harry, Ron and Hermione burst into existence at the edge of a large, dank hole. Apparating without a destination was risky at best, fatal at worst, but somehow, some way, the entire trio had made it in one piece. However, from the swish of wands and several harsh voices shouting curses, they might not stay that way long.

"DOWN!" Ron screamed, and all three pulled their wands as one. Harry hissed in pain as someone threw a Slashing curse at him, tracing deep cuts across his torso and right arm; the adrenalin was pumping too hard for him to feel the pain, even as his blood splashed across the sparse cover the group had found.

_**And if I bleed, I'll bleed**_

"Get him!" someone shouted from the ranks of duelers. A nearby stone cracked in half as a curse missed and rebounded off it.

And as Harry battled for his life, he began to get a sense of who he might be saving here.

_**Knowing you don't care.**_

* * *

Draco dozed, trying to keep a tight rein on the precious little sanity he had left. And as always, every time he closed his eyes, Harry was right there waiting for him. His hand curled reflexively, and Draco lazily wondered when Potter had become Harry. _Since a dying man doesn't have any reason to lie to himself anymore._

_**And if I sleep, just to dream of you,**_

Dimly, he heard the sounds and smelled the scents of battle, of blood and fear. Unwillingly, he found himself dragged from sleep as a pair of rough, dry hands picked him up. Eyes opening, he found himself looking into the empty, black maw of a Dementor's mouth.

_Not what I had hoped to wake up to…_

_**I'll wake without you there**_

* * *

Harry's wand swung of it's own accord, or so it seemed. He didn't remember casting down the ragged group of Death Eaters and vagabonds. But it had happened. Now, as he picked his way over dead or unconscious foes, he stretched out any part of himself that might lead him to the mysterious presence that … that was gone.

_**Isn't something missing?**_

He lowered himself into the grimy pit, which had been dug out as a base, and saw a familiar glimpse of silver hair.

_**Isn't something…**_

* * *

Draco could feel his life leaving his body. It was disconcerting, in an odd sort of distant way. But he was glad in a way. There was no one to mourn him, and he knew his fate. There was no escaping it. His tattered robes were already clutched in the creature's hands, and he felt cold, so very cold.

_**Even though I'm the sacrifice**_

"Put him down!" a voice commanded from his left. Weakly, as Draco was dropped to the ground, he shifted his eyes to watch an avenging angel. "Expecto Patronum!"

_**You won't try for me, not now**_

* * *

Harry didn't use a happy memory; happiness was too distant for him at this point. All he could feel was rage, and despair, mounting and creating a feedback loop in his heart. What he used instead was raw magical force. The Dementor was blown backwards by the sheer force of the spell, and it fled, dissipating in the late night mist like a child's nightmare.

Crouching, he didn't notice the other prisoners, and all that occupied him was laying in the mud before him. Time and war had stolen his beauty, and despair had taken his physical prowess. But the male before him was still as charismatically demanding as on the day they had first met.

Grey eyes fluttered, and focused painfully slow, as though ripping themselves a cell at a time from some otherworldly delight. One frightfully frail hand found its way nearly to Harry's shoulder, and he grasped it as it fell, pressing it to his face.

"Malfoy."

_**Though I died to know you love me**_

"Harry," the voice was weak, and as frail as his body. There was so little life left in Malfoy's eyes that it actually frightened the Gryffindor. "Are you really here?"

The plea was so heartfelt, so pitifully weak, that Harry felt his eyes welling up; he chalked it up to smoke or allergens in the air.

"'M here, Mal – Draco." One thumb stroked Malfoy's cheek, and the dying boy leaned into the touch as though starved for affection. "You're okay now."

"Potter, you can't save everyone." Malfoy choked, and a pink froth bubbled forth from his lips; disgusted, he wiped it away with his ragged collar. "Bloody noble Gryffindor."

"Draco…" Harry whispered, assessing his long-time enemy's condition.

"'M dying, Harry." The soft, simple statement sent shivers down Harry's back. The switch from Potter to Harry was so fast, so easy, that the moment had bypassed him completely. He wondered how long Malfoy had been rooted in his heart.

"No, no you're not." The denial fell flat even as Hermione and Ron lowered themselves into the makeshift prison.

"Yes I am. I'm too far gone." Harry leaned down, kissing Malfoy's forehead and then leaning until their foreheads rested against one another. Malfoy's expression was one of childlike delight, pure and innocent, and Harry mourned for all that might have been had he known sooner.

And at one minute to midnight, according to Harry's battered old watch, Draco Malfoy breathed his last held in the arms of Harry Potter.

_**I'm all alone**_

Gently, so very carefully, Harry let his grip on Malfoy's body slacken until he was free to stand.

_**Isn't something missing?**_

Tears made their way slowly down his cheek. And the wind seemed to sigh to him, as he accepted his friends' hands up, as they continued on their mission, never speaking of the night Harry had lost someone he'd never known he loved, and the wind would continue to sigh to him all the way until the Last Battle at Hogwarts.

And when he turned the Resurrection Stone over three times, beside his father, mother, Remus Lupin and godfather, Sirius Black, stood Draco Malfoy, smiling sadly.

_**Isn't someone missing me?**_

"I miss you."

_I know._

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**Author's Notes:** Wow. Guys, this is seriously something close to my heart. I had originally intended for this to be a strictly Draco fic, yet somehow it turned into slash. Soft slash, not like some of the stuff I've found. I've tried to keep them both in character as much as possible, but I dunno how well I succeeded.

Truth be told, I nearly cried while writing this. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, you know the drill. I don't ask for favs (though I by no means turn them away) and I don't ask for watches (the ticking would drive me crazy, I'd think. –giggles at joke-) but I do want as many reviews as possible.

Your faithful slaving writer,

Kagumi Pheonix.


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